Scraping me softly.

Leaving aside how loaded the D&C is as a surgical procedure - emotionally, physically and hell, politically - mine was a complete clusterfuck.

Lounging around my house in sweats at 11am, waiting with my husband to drive me five minutes to the hospital for my scheduled 12:30 procedure, I get a call, a frantic call on my cell from a number that looks a lot like the hospital.  "Where are you???" asks the surgical coordinator?  Umm, at my house miserable.  Wait.  WHAAA???  You're telling me that my D&C was scheduled for 11am?  No.  Absolutely not.  I was TOLD by your office to arrive at 12 for a 12:30 surgery with Dr. C.  What do you mean Dr. C isn't my surgeon today?  What the hell is going on?  Tears are welling in my eyes as I sit at a table furiously pointing to my desk calendar, as if she can see me.  You know, maybe you can mistakenly pencil in the scheduling of foil highlights and a pedi.  But when your baby dies and you are getting it surgically removed from your uterus?  You tend to MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON TIME FOR YOUR ABORTION. 

Large OB practice fail.

And so proceeded the day as I arrived to the hospital as fast as humanly possible.  So much for all of the meditation I was going to practice the half hour before.  Thanks universe.  My doctor (the OB who delivered niblet - or at least, who began niblet's delivery, another story entirely) met with me, assuring me I wasn't making a mistake, that based on her read of my ultrasounds, I had definitely already miscarried, probably weeks ago, and my body was holding on to the pregnancy.  (Have I mentioned how much my body LOVES being pregnant? Trust me on this).  She explained how she would gently scrape the products of conception out from my womb with a curette.  While I was getting blood drawn, she cracked jokes and complained with the nurse about how awful it was that power outages in our area forced her to return home early from a vacation - back to her kids - because the nanny couldn't hack it.  Hardy har har.

I asked how many days off I should expect from work, and she told me I would be physically fine the next day.  She could tell from my expression that clearly this was not the answer I wanted.  If I had to lose the baby of my dreams, I should at least get a few sick days out of it. 

Roughly 45 minutes later it was done.  I was in twilight sleep and have no memory of anything besides lying in an operating room and then waking up somewhere else. 

My husband came to greet me when I awoke and a sweet new nurse handed me something that may have actually saved me that day:  a doctor's note pulling me out for the rest of week.  Gee, I guess my indignant face worked.  Still, I felt numb and shell-shocked.  I walked into that hospital nearly 12 weeks pregnant.  I walked out scraped empty.